


Northward Drive

by Keiko Kirin (sakana17)



Category: Red River (1948)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-15
Updated: 2004-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakana17/pseuds/Keiko%20Kirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew figures out a few things about Cherry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Northward Drive

**Author's Note:**

> For Dorinda.

It was the early days of the drive. Plenty of food, plenty of determination, plenty of strength -- and the will to drive ten thousand head of cattle north a thousand miles or more into Missouri. Dunson was tough and single-minded, and Matthew watched him with a kind of dreadful awe. He'd seen plenty of tough, single-minded men in the war, and most of 'em were buried in the dirt now: went down in a blaze of glory, hated by the men following them. There could be trouble ahead. But not now. Now it was long days of hard work, hard riding, dust and sweat and the fearsome trembling of the ground as ten thousand cattle trampled it.

This wasn't like anything else Matthew had ever done. Before the war it had been Dunson and he, and Groot and a few fellers and couple thousand cattle worth plenty. And during the war -- well, nothing was like the war. War made friendship bonds fast, and destroyed them even faster. You had to rely on every man around you and yet the only one you could be certain of was yourself. Matthew reckoned the war made him grow up at last. Hard as life had been on the Red River D, he'd left the ranch feeling like the son he'd been raised to be: strong and smart, maybe, but not his own man, not independent. He'd left the ranch in Dunson's shadow, and when he'd returned, he'd found that shadow smaller than he'd remembered, and not so imposing.

This change left him with an odd restless feeling: a separation, isolation. When he rode now, he watched Dunson like any other hand watched Dunson: with a twist in his gut when he asked himself if this was the right way, the right trail, and would there really be ten, twelve dollars a head at the end of it. It was when Dunson had branded Diego's cattle, and Meeker's, too: that was when the feeling of being separate had become something lasting and final. Matthew had known at that moment that no matter what happened from now on, he was never going to fall back in Dunson's shadow again.

That moment at the branding had brought something else with it, though: Cherry Valance. Matthew couldn't figure that feller out. He was sort of crazy, Matthew reckoned. The kind of man that brought trouble with him. But he was a fine shot, and he was sort of funny, too. He had a piercing narrow glare that was both a warning and an invitation. _Come closer, _it said,_ and I might be friendly -- but I'll probably shoot you_. Cherry liked to needle him sometimes. He would ride up alongside Matthew and say something about Dunson, or about Matthew's gun: how he was going to get that gun once and for all. He said it with a lazy smile and that piercing look, and Matthew just smiled to himself. He'd never liked to be needled, and he'd never liked to hear anyone say anything about Dunson. But from Cherry Valance, somehow it was all right.

It was late, late afternoon and the sun dipped behind the hills but Matthew could tell by the way Dunson rode that he wasn't going to stop for another few miles or so. Matthew slowed to look back and check on the drag, and Cherry Valance rode up and fell in alongside him.

"Yep, that's a fine gun of yours. That's gonna be mine before long," Cherry said. Needling him. Matthew smiled to himself and didn't reply. Cherry continued, "Did I ever tell you about the time me and Persy was down by Diego's, and met that senorita?" He had. Twice. Matthew kept smiling, silent. "Oh, she was a fine-looking woman, that senorita, and I reckon she--"

"Not paying you to talk," barked Dunson ahead, looking back over his shoulder. "Paying you to ride and keep these cattle moving."

Cherry shrugged a little and smirked and fell back to join Buster and Naylor. Matthew glanced back and Cherry was still smirking at him, which made Matthew smile again. It was a strange feeling that came over him sometimes when he was with Cherry: like they shared some joke or secret or story. It didn't make any sense. He hardly knew a thing about Cherry.

No, he thought a little while later as he rode on alone, that wasn't quite true. He knew that Cherry was tough, reliable, a quick, fine shot, and that despite his promise to take Matthew's gun from him some day, he was dependable and followed Matthew and Dunson without stirring up trouble. He knew cattle, he knew the land, and he knew how to get along with men by keeping out of their way, not winning too much at cards, and not drinking too much. What he didn't know about Cherry was his past, but it didn't matter, especially not here: out here on the still-wild trail driving the cattle north in a relentless push. Here no man's past mattered, and not his future, either, not the future after Missouri. Here was the present, and here Matthew was his own man. It gave him a heady feeling: exhilaration with the isolation.

It was dark and starless when they finally made camp by a drying up creek that ran out its last in a watering hole. Dunson stalked through the camp and out a-ways. He kept to himself while the men sat around the fires and Groot's wagon and played cards and talked. Matthew led his horse back from the creek bed and stopped at the wagon to talk to Groot about their stores. Some of the men clustered near the fire, playing cards, and Smith pulled out his mouth-organ and played a few notes. When Matthew looked over that way, there was Cherry sitting by the fire and watching him, like always. Matthew went and sat nearby and every time he checked Cherry was still watching him. Matthew carefully drew his gun, making a show of it, and polished the handle with his sleeve. He heard Cherry's brief, rough chuckle as he slid it back into his holster.

The card game broke up when Groot packed up for the night, and the fire burned low, and some men went off to watch the herd and others lay down with a blanket and went to sleep. Matthew set his hat and gunbelt on the ground beside him and stretched out with his hands clasped behind his head. A couple of stars dotted the vast bowl of the sky. It was quiet but for the cattle and horses and the low conversations around the camp too far to be heard clearly. They were talking about Dunson, Matthew figured, or planning how to spend their wages. There was a light rustling in the dirt and Cherry lay there on a blanket beside him. He had one knee up and hung his hat on it.

"Do you think that woman was telling you the truth about the railroad in Abilene?" Matthew asked him. Ever since Cherry had mentioned it, Matthew hadn't been able to stop thinking about Abilene. It was farther west. Nobody could have driven his cattle that far yet. They'd be the first.

"Maybe," Cherry said. "Think Dunson will change his mind about Abilene?"

"Nope."

Matthew rolled onto his side, and Cherry was watching him. Matthew closed his eyes and it seemed to him that Cherry was still watching him. Even so, he slept.

The next day Cherry took the drag and after a good start, Matthew hung back to ride with him. Cherry was with Buster and Smith, telling a story. As they neared Matthew, Cherry concluded with, "And I said to her, I said, 'Why, ma'am, that makes two of us.'" Buster and Smith burst into laughter. Smith slapped his saddle and rode off to join Simmons. Buster passed Matthew, laughing and saying to himself, "'Why, ma'am, that makes two of us.' Oh, yes. Yes. 'That makes two of us.'"

"I missed the beginning of that," Matthew said to Cherry when they were side-by-side. "What was the rest of it?"

"Just some story," Cherry said in a tone which meant he wasn't going to repeat it for Matthew.

Annoyed, Matthew glanced sidelong at him and asked, "Was it true?"

Cherry smiled lazily. "Shouldn't ask a man if he's a liar. He might misunderstand."

They rode without speaking for a while. The sun was high overhead and the air was thick with dust and flies and heat. Matthew wiped his face with his neckerchief and said finally, "I don't think you are." At Cherry's questioning look he added, "A liar. What's more, I don't think your girl in Kansas City was a liar, either. A railroad in Abilene. Why would anyone lie about something like that? Doesn't make sense."

Cherry gave him an odd look, like he was surprised, like Matthew had said something unexpected. There was an openness about his look, an understanding, and Matthew felt it again: it was like there was something that only they knew and shared. It wasn't about the railroad in Abilene: Cherry had told plenty of hands about that. And it wasn't anything about the drive, Matthew reckoned. Then Cherry's look changed, closed up, and he gazed ahead.

"Don't matter whether it's a lie or not, the way I make it. Long as Dunson's heading for Missouri," he said flatly, and Matthew silently agreed with him.

It was another long, long day and it was night by the time they stopped in the bumpy, rocky land above a shallow rainwater lake the cattle drank dry. Matthew was nearly too tired to eat but was too restless to sleep, and after dinner he walked aimlessly through the camp. Although he had no particular reason to, he looked for Cherry among the groups of men sitting together or bedding down for the night. When he passed by Buster's blanket, he heard Buster murmur to himself, "'That makes two of us, ma'am'" and chuckle quietly. It rekindled Matthew's curiosity about that story. A story about some woman, of course. Cherry had quite a few of those.

Matthew took another, wider circuit through the camp, thinking about women. When Cherry talked of women, they were warm and soft and laughing. They welcomed and soothed a man. Matthew didn't know those women. The women he'd met during the war had made Matthew impatient or angry -- whores and widows and praying wives and young frightened girls who stayed away from men. Women with cold flint-hard eyes, women who never laughed like they meant it. Only the whores talked plainly, but that wasn't right, either. Didn't make Matthew feel welcome or soothed or wanted. Only made him feel lonelier than ever. Maybe he needed to meet these senoritas Cherry was always going on about.

He was back by Groot's wagon, but Groot had gone off to a card game. Thoughts and memories of women occupied Matthew's mind while he laid his blanket out over a level patch of ground. He'd taken off his gunbelt and hat before he noticed Cherry standing over by the fire, leaning against the wagon. Cherry didn't have his hat on and his wild hair was sticking up in waves, refusing to abide by the straight part Cherry carefully combed and waxed into it every morning. Cherry acknowledged him with a look.

Matthew was about to ask him again about that story Buster was so taken with, but changed his mind. Even if Cherry would tell him, Matthew wasn't in a mood for a funny story now. But Cherry was there, close by, and they were alone. They could talk about anything. It hadn't occurred to Matthew until this moment how much he'd wanted this kind of solitude with Cherry.

He stretched out on the blanket. Cherry pushed back from the wagon and sat on the ground next to him. He took out his tobacco bag. Matthew gazed at the fire, thoughts mixing chaotically in his head -- they could talk about anything, except Cherry wasn't talking -- until his gaze moved to Cherry, outlined by the yellow light of the fire.

"You ever been in love?" Matthew asked him in a low voice. He surprised himself with the question, but now that it was out he was genuinely curious to know the answer. Some dim memories from the war touched his mind, but mostly he was thinking about Cherry and wondering what his answer would be.

Cherry gave him a long look: his piercing, warning glare. "Now why would you ask me that?" he said slowly.

"I was thinking about your senoritas," said Matthew, aware with each word that this was a lie.

Cherry's look changed, became lazy, but he didn't answer.

Matthew asked, "How do you know when you're in love with somebody?"

Cherry smiled and tapped some tobacco into a rolling paper. "I ain't saying I have been, and I ain't saying I haven't been, but seems to me a man knows he's in love when there's someone he can't stop thinking about, and can't bear to be apart from. Someone he needs to be beside, someone he can talk to if he wants or be quiet with if he wants. Someone who--" Cherry stopped abruptly and finished rolling his tobacco.

Matthew glanced at him. "No, go on," he said. The way Cherry described it, love sounded like a real thing, a thing he could actually have. It was almost too simple.

Cherry shook his head and stuck the cigarito into the corner of his mouth. He picked up a twig from the fire, lit the tobacco, and threw the stick into the flames. "Love's a damn fool thing, Matt. It can make a man do things, say things he shouldn't oughtta."

Disappointed, Matthew considered this. "Yeah, but I reckon it makes a man more himself, too," he said, unwilling to give up yet. "Completes a man. Isn't that what they say? It's a woman that completes a man, makes him whole: a wife."

Cherry blew smoke over the fire. "That's what they say," he said carefully, as if he didn't believe it, and Matthew thought, _Cherry's never been in love, either, despite all those senoritas of his_. The thought saddened him. Even if love was just something people talked about, like one day striking gold, he would have liked to have known it could be real.

He watched Cherry smoke for a while. Once Cherry looked at him with a sort of smirk, and Matthew thought he'd say something, but Cherry didn't say a word. He finished smoking his tobacco and was still sitting there when Matthew closed his eyes and let weariness pull him into sleep.

They rode together in the morning: a bright cool morning with wind coming from the north. "I've been thinking about what you said about love," Matthew said, coming close.

Cherry glared at him. "Aw, Jesus, Matthew," he said, wincing. "What do you want to say that out here for?"

Matthew looked over his shoulder. "It's only Buster back there and he's singing to himself. No one's gonna hear," he said reasonably. "I was thinking that you're in the right of it, and that that's the kind of wife I want. Someone I can sit outside with and watch the stars and tell her what I've been thinking and what kind of dreams I have. Someone who'll really listen to me and talk to me, and tell me all the things in her head, too. So I'll really know who she is. I reckon that's the right kind of wife."

He hadn't meant to say so much, and now he felt exposed and a little ridiculous in the awkward silence. At last Cherry said, "Matt?"

"Yeah?" asked Matthew.

"You gonna give her your gun, too? 'Cause that gun's mine, you know, sooner or later."

And something broke inside Matthew, and he couldn't take it any longer. "Now what do you want to do that for?" he cried. He let his embarrassment turn into frustrated anger.

"Do what for?" Cherry asked, giving him a sidelong look.

"Needling me," Matthew muttered. "You're always needling me. Saying these things to rile me up."

Cherry snorted. "Rile you up? I'd like to see that. You ain't been riled up since I met you. Even when you shoot that gun of yours you're all easy about it, like you're pulling out a Bible on Sunday. I've been wondering if that's blood in your veins, or if you've been living out here with Dunson for so long it's all turned to dust and cactus."

The mention of Dunson irritated Matthew more than anything else, and he clenched his fists over his reins until the tempest had passed. He glanced at Cherry, who rode on easily, unconcerned. Matthew came up beside him.

"That's a cruel hard thing you said, Cherry Valance."

"Maybe," Cherry said.

The rest of the long day they didn't speak about anything other than the work: brief, impersonal exchanges shouted across distances while they rode apart. When they camped for the night Matthew went to find Dunson with a vague plan of bringing up Abilene again. Dunson was quiet and remote, in no mood to talk or listen. Matthew wandered farther out from the camp and watched the sky and when he returned to bed down, it was late and quiet but for the snores and a few whispered conversations spread across the camp.

He found Cherry lying on a blanket off by himself, finishing the last of a cigarito. Matthew threw down his blanket close by and lay down.

"So," Cherry said quietly, "you have dreams, do you?"

Matthew fought down the immediate surge of prickling anger. He could tell by Cherry's voice that Cherry hadn't meant to needle him. He was mad at himself for saying all of those things to Cherry earlier, and he had a quiet sorrow that it was Cherry he was talking to because he couldn't talk to Dunson anymore.

"I got a few," he said. "Don't you?"

Cherry was quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he said with a sad little laugh, "I have a few of my own."

The desire to know what they were was so intense that Matthew bit his lip to keep from asking. As soon as he asked, Cherry would close up again and never tell him. But after a silence Matthew couldn't help it, and he murmured, "I wish I knew what they were."

A quiet clink of metal was Cherry moving, then he heard Cherry's breath and felt it on his face, very warm. Cherry grabbed his shoulder, and before he could wonder what Cherry intended to do, he felt Cherry's breath on his lips and Cherry was kissing him. Cherry's lips were dry, rough, hard, then Cherry licked them with a soft wet squirm of his hot tongue, and Cherry kissed him harder. Matthew let him and pressed closer before he thought he should be struggling. Cherry had gone crazy, could do anything.

And yet the threat seemed distant and unreal, and Matthew parted his lips for Cherry's tongue and was alive with the strangest sensation he couldn't name until Cherry drew back and Matthew realized it was the sensation of being wanted. Cherry wanted him.

Matthew wrapped his arms around Cherry's back and moved to kiss him, but Cherry pulled out of his arms and said next to his ear, "Now you know what one of 'em is." He stood up and went back to his blanket. Matthew lay back on the ground, the feel of the kiss still impressed on his lips, and his heart beat faster until the night air cooled him.

"Cherry?" he said into the dark. There was no answer, and Matthew listened and listened until he knew he was alone and Cherry had gone off by himself. Matthew tried to sleep, thought he never would, but when morning came it was Groot shaking him and shouting in his ear that woke him up.

All day Cherry stayed to himself or rode with Buster or Simmons or Naylor. But whenever Matthew looked around and found him, Cherry was watching him. Matthew was glad to ride alone for a while, because he was thinking about Cherry so much he didn't know what he might do if Cherry came near him. He wanted Cherry to kiss him again: that much was easy to figure out. Then he thought about grabbing hold of Cherry and kissing him back, and when he thought about that, he could smell and taste Cherry's breath and sweat and skin, and he wanted to run his fingers through that wild hair and make it go even wilder.

He thought about when he first met Cherry, out there at the ranch while Dunson was having the men brand Meeker's cattle with the Red River D. Cherry had looked a little dangerous and wild, and he'd given Matthew that piercing look that was both warning and welcome. Matthew had told Cherry he couldn't come on the drive, knowing Cherry was going to challenge him. Even then, Matthew thought, he and Cherry had some understanding between them, some secret.

The drive crossed a rocky creek bed carved out of the ground and some of the cattle ran loose, following the water instead of the men. Matthew called for Hansen and they galloped down the bed after the steers, whips flying and cracking the air. By the time they'd rounded up a dozen or so steers, other men had joined them, including Cherry. They drove the cattle up the embankment and the small party crossed uneven, empty land toward the cloud of dust in the distance which was the rest of the herd.

Dunson was in a sour mood when they stopped that night. Matthew went straight to him when they brought the wayward cattle in, and Dunson snapped, "How many did we lose?"

"Hard to say," Matthew replied. "Maybe half a dozen. Eight, ten. Not many."

Dunson worked his jaw and seemed about to say something, something angry. He pulled out his flask and took a drink and waved Matthew off with a stern, "All right."

Matthew was heading for Groot's wagon when he found Cherry standing by his horse and wiping his face and neck with a wet neckerchief. Cherry paused when he saw Matthew. Matthew gazed at him steadily, wondering whether he should say anything. Cherry wiped the neckerchief over his chest under his shirt, wrung it out and slung it over his shoulder. "Come here," he said, moving off.

Matthew followed him, and they walked away from camp, out into the night and the moonlit land. Away until they were alone by a skinny old tree and Cherry stopped and leaned against it and reached for Matthew's arm. But Matthew had made up his mind on the walk and before Cherry could grab him, he had Cherry's waist in his hands and was up against him and kissed him the way he'd been wanting to all day.

Cherry put his hands on Matthew's shoulders but instead of grabbing or clutching, he rubbed them and ran his hands over Matthew's back. Matthew broke the kiss but Cherry returned it, not hard this time, but slow and soft and loving while his hands stroked Matthew's back. And they kissed like this for a long time, until Cherry's hat knocked Matthew's off his head.

Matthew looked down at it and laughed a little. He looked at Cherry and pushed Cherry's hat back until it fell off his head and that wild hair of his was set free. Matthew combed his fingers through it -- it was rough and dusty but thick and wavy and he liked feeling the curls moving around his fingers.

"Think anyone's looking for us?" Cherry asked.

"Nope." Matthew rubbed the back of Cherry's head, setting more curls free. "Think anyone'll see us out here?" he asked.

"Nope," said Cherry and he kissed Matthew's neck and moved his hands to Matthew's gunbelt.

Matthew placed his hands over Cherry's. "You're not getting my gun that easy."

"I'm not going for your gun," Cherry said into his ear, his breath ticklish. He unbuckled Matthew's belt and set it on the ground. He took off his own gunbelt and gave Matthew a crooked smile and added, "Not yet, anyway."

Matthew kissed him again, circling him with his arms and holding him close. It was thrilling to hold Cherry's body like this and feel how strong he was and how much he wanted Matthew. And Matthew could want him right back and squeeze him and push against him, and Cherry let him, liked that, and wanted more.

Cherry gripped Matthew's sides and knelt to the ground. Shakily, and when he toppled and fell, Matthew went with him. Cherry sprawled underneath him, lying on his back. Matthew propped up on one arm and unlaced Cherry's shirt. He caressed Cherry's chest, running his palm over the flat hard planes of it. Cherry untucked Matthew's shirt, slid his warm, calloused hand underneath and rested it on the small of Matthew's back, and drew him into a long kiss.

"Hell," Cherry said softly when the kiss ended. He rubbed his thigh between Matthew's legs. Matthew smiled to himself and ran his fingers through Cherry's hair.

"Guess you finally got me riled up," Matthew said.

"Guess so," Cherry said drily.

He put his hands on Matthew's hips, inside his trousers, and held him, and Matthew pushed and rubbed against him. Every touch sent a tingling, burning shiver through him, made him feel a wild exhilaration he hadn't felt since the drive began, since before the war, since forever. He unbuttoned his trousers and pushed them down and unbuttoned his shirt, and Cherry made a soft little grunt and clutched him. Matthew kissed him, writhed and bucked against him, and slid his hands under Cherry's shirt to feel his skin and feel how he moved.

"Wait, Matt, wait," Cherry said, fumbling with his own buttons one-handed while he kept the other hand rubbing Matthew's back, moving it lower over Matthew's backside. Matthew rolled Cherry's shirt up to his neck, and then they were pressed together, skin against skin, moving roughly and kissing slowly. And Matthew couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to, not until the end. He was skin-to-skin with Cherry Valance, like to burn up from the heat of him, and it made him hunger for more: for every breath and groan and squeeze and push, for the taste of him and the raw, hard smell of him.

Not until the end did they stop. Matthew rolled off of Cherry and lay beside him on the rocky ground, and they caught their breath. Cherry sat up, looked around and found the damp neckerchief he'd had slung on his shoulder earlier. He cleaned himself, folded the cloth and handed it to Matthew, and did up his clothes. Matthew cleaned off, buttoned his trousers, and lay back staring at the stars. Cherry patted his pockets and said softly, "Damn. Forgot my tobacco."

Matthew smiled. Cherry stretched out beside him.

"Think we should go back yet?" Matthew asked.

Cherry touched a finger to Matthew's lips, slowly pushed it along every curve. "No," he said. "Not yet."

Matthew looked at him, could just about see his lazy smile and piercing stare -- at least he could picture them. He touched Cherry's cheek with the back of his hand, liked moving his knuckles across the sharp, round cheekbone.

"Abilene," he said. "Wish we were going to Abilene."

"Why?" Cherry turned his head and rubbed his lips over Matthew's knuckles.

"I don't know. Just seems like a place where a man's dreams could come true."

Cherry chuckled and kissed Matthew's jaw. He smoothed his hand across Matthew's chest, rested his head on Matthew's shoulder, and murmured, "You going soft on me?"

Matthew thought of a quick reply, discarded it as being too vulgar, decided that didn't matter with Cherry, and said, "Too late. Already have." Matthew felt Cherry's quiet laugh on his skin and knew that he wanted to feel that laugh again, lots of times. He slid his fingers into Cherry's hair, sank them deep, and rubbed those wild curls.

After a while Cherry's hand slowed on his belly. Matthew asked, "Should we go back?" and Cherry's, "No," could barely be heard. Cherry breathed slow and deep: warm and moving gently against Matthew with each breath.

Matthew watched the stars, briefly worried about being missed in camp before deciding that he didn't care and that it wasn't likely. "You're still not getting my gun," he said finally, expecting no reply. Cherry's smile tickled him.

Cherry pressed closer, and Matthew held him, and reckoned that Cherry Valance had gotten something after all. Or maybe it was something they'd always shared, he and Cherry.

(the end)


End file.
